OF A MILITARY RECONNAISSANCE, FROM SANTA FÉ, NEW MEXICO, TO THE NAVAJO COUNTRY, MADE WITH THE TROOPS UNDER COMMAND OF BREVET LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN BY JAMES H. SIMPSON, ARM. FIRST LIEUTENANT CORPS OF TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERS. STOR_LIBRARY NEW-YORK PHILADELPHIA: LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO AND CO., BUREAU OF TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEERS, Washington, July 2, 1850. SIR: Under a resolution of the Senate of the 8th June, I have the honor to transmit the report and map of Lieutenant J. H. Simpson, Corps Topographical Engineers, of an expedition into the Navajo country in 1849. The resolution calls for all sketches and drawings belonging to reports. In the present case there are seventy-five sketches. and drawings of great interest, and highly necessary to illustrate the report. It has not been possible to have these copied in time, but, in the printing of the report, the engraver will be allowed access to the originals, from which he would rather engrave than from copies, and which course will also save time. In the printing of the report, it is respectfully suggested that the printing of the map and sketches should be done under the superintendence of this office, from the belief that much time would be saved thereby. Respectfully, sir, your obedient servant, J. J. ABERT, Col. Corps Topographical Engineers. HON. G. W. CRAWFORD, Secretary of War. SANTA FÉ, N. M., April 11, 1850. SIR: I have the honor to submit, hereto subjoined, my journal and map of a reconnaissance of the country traversed by the troops under the command of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel John M. Washington, chief of the 9th military department, and Governor of New Mexico, in an expedition against the Navajo Indians, in the months of August and September of the year 1849. In addition to the journal, will be found a number of appen dices, viz: "A," my report to Colonel Washington of a reconnaissance of the borders of the Navajo country, with a view to the establishment of a post; "B," a comparative vocabulary of the language of the Pueblo or civilized Indians of New Mexico, and of the wild tribes living upon its borders; "C," a letter from Assistant Surgeon John F. Hammond, of the army, giving a description of a room he saw among the ruins of Pueblo Bonito; "D," a schedule of minerals illustrative of the mineralogical and geological character of the country traversed; and "E," a table of geographical positions. I also submit a number of sketches illustrative of the personal, natural, and artificial objects met with on the route, including portraits of distinguished chiefs, costume, scenery, singular geological formations, petrifactions, ruins, and fac-similes of ancient inscriptions found engraven on the side walls of a rock of stupendous proportions, and of fair surface. For these truthful delineations, and the topographical sketches, I am indebted to my two assistants, Messrs. R. H. Kern and E. M. Kern, brothers—the former having furnished, with few exceptions, all the sketches of scenery, &c., and the latter the topography and other artistical work displayed upon the map. To both these gentlemen I tender my grateful acknowledgments for the kind, zealous, and effective manner in which they ever were found ready to co-operate with me in the discharge of my duties; and I owe it to them also to state that, having left Washington the spring previous, with orders to return from Santa Fé as soon as practicable after my exploration of the Fort Smith route, I consequently came hither unprovided with the proper appliances necessary for the most successful exhibition of their skill and labor. This circumstance will explain the unfit character, in many instances, of the paper on which the sketches have been drawn, and which it required, even such as it is, the ransacking of almost every store in the place to sufficiently supply. But these gentlemen had learned what a practical acquaintance with life, in its more destitute forms, will always develop a ready resort to, and application of, expedients; and this readiness was not without its value, under the destitution referred to. I also submit an herbarium of plants, which I think will not be without interest, in its relation to the botanical character of |